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...and for seven days and seven nights they feasted and danced, for the fairies of that secret city loved guests and never received them, and they were delighted to welcome the youth, and the princess showed him special favor.
But upon the eighth day, the king asked him why he had come.
The young hero said: "I went down to the sea-shore, called by a song, and there I met the Lord of the Sea. The Gods who govern all good things have sent me to tell you this: that you must go hence from this land."
The king was unmoved, but the princess spoke: "O father, he is a hero and favored of the Gods, and the Lord of the Sea would not lead us astray. We must heed these words. If you will not listen, I shall, for I love him."
The king sat in silence for a time.
Then he said: "I will heed this counsel if you bring me what I desire, for there is one thing I yearn for that may yet be found in Middle-Earth. Find out the fate of my dear sister."
Idril went with him, of course, not wanting Tuor to get into any danger alone. He could handle himself, she knew, but a companion made any journey safer.
"She went through Nan Dungortheb, last anyone knew of her," said Idril. "We must go to the borders of Doriath and speak to the marchwardens who may have seen her pass by."
Only few of the marchwardens were willing to speak to them, and they did not find many, being unable to venture past the Girdle of Melian. But there was one who was swayed by Tuor, for he had known Túrin the cousin of Tuor, and aided him for Túrin's sake.
"When I was on the eastern marches, long and long ago, I saw a woman who was as you describe," said Mablung. "I saw her in the trees of Nan Elmoth, that holy place where our King met our Queen, and never saw her again."
They thanked him profusely and hurried onwards, hoping that in Nan Elmoth they might find another clue.
At the forest's edge, they paused.
"This wood is strange and shadowed. I am not sure we ought to trust it. Its magicks are unfamiliar to me, foreign even to the spells of the Sindarin fairies. And yet they say it is a holy place," said Idril.
Tuor squeezed her hand. "We shall stay together, and trust one another. Is there not light enough in love to find the path?"
His words comforted her, and they stepped in.
The first thing they noticed was the music. Some instrument played a sweet tune, and they could not tell if it were far off or near, but it seemed to call to them; and they stumbled forward over many gnarled roots in search of it, but found not the source.
Idril blinked. Which direction had they come from? Where was the way back? She could see no path but the one forward, no light from the Sun, nor any indication of which direction the trees might thin in. Her thoughts grew muddled, swept away by music.
And then before them appeared, as if coalescing from the shadows and the song, an elf-youth, lithe and fair. He looked to Idril's sight to be only two centuries old, but his dark and glittering eyes hinted at wisdom beyond his years.
So captivated were they with his countenance, struck to see not only the first person besides each other in what felt like weeks but one so lovely, that they nearly missed it when he began to speak in a voice warm and resonant and dark.
"Welcome to Nan Elmoth, honored guests," he said, and held out his hands for them to take. "May I have your names?"
And thus the shadowed prince of the Fae thought to make them his own, though they knew it not, and brought them to the unceasing revel.
"Oh!" cried Idril. "The music!"
"Yes, the music," said their host, who had said to call him Maeglin. "There is a dance here that never ends, in this forest of joy-under-shadows. Come with me, and sit at the feast and eat all you wish, and then dance with me!"
Tuor was less able than an elf to go long without sustenance, and did not recall where the two of them had left their bags of food and drink, only that they must have, so he followed gladly.
Maeglin took a golden goblet and filled it from a clear stream, and he gave it to his guests with all ceremony. "Be welcome," he said, "in the wood of my father, and may you never have cause to depart."
They drank the cool water, and upon doing so found that their eyes were altered, and the forest which had been shadowed was now alight with many colors and dancing lights like fireflies or will-o'-the-wisps beneath the dark eaves. They ate from the table, and the exhaustion they had barely noticed faded away into boundless energy, the enchantments upon the fare more potent than any magicked lembas Idril had ever seen.
"Dance with me," he said again, and they did, unable to resist the music and the joy of the other dancers. He proved himself fleet-footed and elegant, and they lost track of time entirely.
And so did they join the revel unending, and they might have been lost immediately to the eternal dance, if the shadowed prince did not hunger so for their hearts.
At last the shadowed prince said: "Will you come with me and wander the wood, and come into my home? Nan Elmoth is the abode of bliss, and I would share it with you, fair strangers."
"That sounds wonderful," said Tuor, unsure when they had stopped dancing, or how long they had been doing so.
Idril smiled. It was hard not to smile here, in a land of joy made sacred by the love of Melian and Thingol. "We will go with you. But I had a question I wished to ask, and I find I have quite forgotten it."
"Then do not worry. The cares of the outside world do not matter here," said Maeglin. "Your questions will be waiting for you if you leave."
They did not question the if when it ought to have been when.
"I can tell," said Idril instead. "Your people, it seems, have no fear even of the Enemy."
"What need have we to fear what lies without?" he asked.
He led them through the wood, following the pathless ways and the dancing lights, and they found it fair: singing birds, sweet-smelling flowers and trees, softly babbling waters.
And there deep in the wood he sang to them songs of love and enchantment, and they forgot entirely why they had come to Nan Elmoth at all. Why would they come, if not to hear him and look upon him, and to bear him company?
"You must know of our customs if you wish to stay," he said after his song had won them. "You are my guests, and the guests of no other, so you must not listen to the other courtiers, but to their guests you may speak if you wish. Do not go to the dancing without me, and do not eat or drink what anyone offers you, only what is on the feasting table or what I give. And do not sleep -- though, of course, you shall not need to."
"Why would I sleep, when awake I might see you, foremost of all the wonders and joys of this land?" said Tuor.
The shadowed prince smiled to himself, for he had now taken their hearts, and had only to bind them to make them his entirely. Thus he allowed them further freedoms, knowing they would do nothing that could take them from him, nor that might harm him.
But he could not bind them until they offered themselves to be bound, for no fairy can take what is neither given nor owed.
Alone the princess and the hero wandered the woods, for the shadowed prince had gone to attend upon his father, who desired to know what had been done with the newcomers, and the two of them stumbled upon a strange clearing.
Beneath tall trees lay a bower shaded from the lack of sunlight by black silk, and in it a lady in white lay upon a stone bed with a sword in her folded hands, and she was the king's sister, though they knew it not.
Idril grew dizzy, and did not know why. To her returned the thought that she had come to Nan Elmoth to ask a question, and the question buzzed in her mind, though she could not catch it.
"Tuor, my love, why did we come?" she asked.
"I do not know," he said. "But who is this lady, and why does she sleep? Even I have not slept since we came here, and it has been -- it has been -- it has been some time, and I am mortal and require it more often than you do. And she is an elf-lady, or my eyes deceive me."
A pause.
"Were we not seeking something? A trail or an answer?" said Idril, but just then Maeglin came to them, worry marring his face, and the urge to soothe him was so strong that they forgot their questions at once.
"You must not be here," said Maeglin. "This bower is a forbidden one, and many spells are laid upon it that can harm you. Let us return to the dance, and forget."
But it did not slip their minds, the one imperfection in a realm of joy, and the shadowed prince cursed himself for letting them discover it.
Upon a time they sought out the bower again, after what felt like many days of dancing and walking and singing, and when the shadowed prince noticed their absence he thought: Fool! How have they gone hence from you, why did you turn your eyes away?
But he must chase them and find them, for they had taken his heart from him just as he had sought to take theirs, and could not allow them to leave with it.
"She is familiar," Idril said, trying to sound confident. "I have seen her face before we came to this wood, if indeed there was such a time before."
"I have not seen her, but I know there was a time before, as I did not meet you here but elsewhere," said Tuor. "But if there is not a time after, and we remain here in bliss and threefold love, I will be content."
"As would I," she said. "And yet, let us get a closer look."
As they neared, the shadows deepened until they could not see, and an unfamiliar voice rang out. "Who dares to trespass here? This place is forbidden to you."
From the shadow stepped an elf greatly alike to Maeglin, but taller and with silver hair to his black, and his air was nowhere near so friendly. Idril knew at once that this must be Maeglin's father, the lord of the joyous wood, but unlike his realm he was severe and joyless. The very air seemed to bend about him.
"Father!" cried Maeglin, running to him. "Do not bring your ire upon them, I beg, it was I who lost sight of my guests so discourteously. They shall not wander here again."
"If they do, my son, then they shall be your guests no longer, and you must now bring them into my house, so that they do not wander," he decreed.
So Maeglin took their hands again and said, "Do not return here, my dear loves, forget this place! There is nothing for you here, and only my family may enter."
Thus the shadowed prince shielded them from the fairy lord his father, for they held his heart, but he brought them into his home, where he hoped to bind them.
The ways of the fairies would not permit him to bind their hearts to him forever unless they offered first, so the shadowed prince set all his efforts to this end. He sang to them, and danced with them, and in a glade he grew a pomegranate tree in the hopes they would ask for a fruit from it.
The princess and the hero were enraptured with him, and desired nothing but to remain with him, so he sought to trick them into offering themselves.
"My lord, my lady!" said Maeglin. "How I wish that you would stay with me, but you have a mission, a question to which you seek the answer. There are no answers nor questions in Nan Elmoth, only the music, and our love which has lit my days as with starlight beneath the boughs of the wood. You must go hence, but I beg you to return to me, and I shall give you a token to remind you to find me again."
The memory of their quest began to trickle back, and they wondered how they could have forgotten it so fully, even in such a place as Nan Elmoth and with such a fair love as Maeglin.
"I would not be parted from you," said Tuor. "And, if we must part, I would not do so fully. Would you be our husband, even if I went forth to seek my answer?"
"Would you be our husband, even if we must leave you for a time?" echoed Idril. "Or, if you could bear to depart your home, would you come with us?"
He had won.
Maeglin smiled. "I would, I would! But I cannot wed you now; there are conditions which must be met."
"Name them," said Idril.
"First, in the starlight we must pledge our troth," he said. "Second, in the light of the Sun my mother must give her blessing. Third, only in the light of the Moon will I give you my truest name and wed you, or not at all."
"Who is your mother?" said Idril.
"Why, she is the lady who lies in the bower! She is in an enchanted sleep, but I know how to wake her," said Maeglin.
"There is no sunlight nor moonlight in this wood," said Tuor.
"Then you shall simply have to bring me outside in order to marry," said Maeglin. "But there is a glade of starlight here, where we may pledge our hearts to one another and eat from the pomegranate tree."
Idril squeezed his hand. "Let us go there now."
They slipped off into the night -- or, perhaps, the day, for they were indistinguishable -- and in time came to a place where the sky opened above them. The stars seemed almost within reach, dancing about them rather than distant in the heavens, like so many fireflies.
There among the stars they swore to marry once Maeglin's conditions had been met, and he promised also to aid their quest, and they ate of the pomegranate tree, breaking each one fruit and giving the halves to the other two.
Thus was one-half the binding complete, and the shadowed prince's claim laid upon them. From this happy vowing they went straightaway to bring his lady mother from her sleep and to the Sun.
"We must wrap her in this silk," said Maeglin, "for she must keep her sword in her hands. I know which path shall lead us away and out of the wood, but when we reach the edge, one of you must carry me past the boundary, for I am of this realm and cannot leave of my own power."
So Idril lifted the lady, as did Tuor, and the three of them bore her as in a funeral procession. The music of Nan Elmoth, still so welcoming and cheery, felt wrong and out of tune.
At last a sunbeam filtered through the trees, and Maeglin said, "We are nearly there! My lady, you must lay my mother on the ground out in the meadow, and take from her the black silk and throw it away into the river, and my lord, you must carry me."
These directions seemed strange to them, as did, now that they thought about it, many of his instructions, and the rules of Nan Elmoth which he had related to them. But they obeyed nonetheless, and when the silk was thrown away and Maeglin was set upon his feet, the sunlight scoured away their enchantment, and the truth of Nan Elmoth lay bare.
When their senses returned, they saw that Maeglin stood between them and his mother, who looked now more alive and more like to wake, and tears ran down his face. "Forgive me," he begged. "My lady, my lord, I love you, though you have cause to doubt it, and I did swear to wed you and to aid your quest, and I shall if you still desire it. My mother will grant her blessing if you will pretend for only one day that you love me still, without any spell clouding your thoughts, and when the moon rises I shall be yours by right. You shall know my truest name. I am sorry I bespelled you, but I could think of no other way, and your feelings were not false, only heightened, I swear it!"
But Idril hardly heard him, for she recognized at last the lady who now was waking. "Aredhel, my father's sister!" she cried. "Awake, awake!"
The eyes of Aredhel opened, and she said, "My Lómion, where are we? Why do I hear the voice of my brother's daughter, or is this another trick of the edge of sleep?"
"Mother!" He turned to attend to her, helping her to sit up, and Idril and Tuor went to her other side. "We have been taken from the forest, and you are safe. Do not strain yourself, please!"
"I am glad of it, my son, but how has Idril my niece come to be here?" said Aredhel.
"To seek you," said Idril, tears of relief and joy welling up. "When I saw you in the wood I did not recognize you, nor recall that my betrothed and I were sent to look for you! But find you we have."
Aredhel embraced her. "Glad am I that you found me, and my dear Lómion, and delivered us from that place of suffering!"
"He delivered us just as much himself," said Tuor. "We are betrothed to him, if you would give your blessing, and he has not reconsidered. I, at least, shall forgive his deception, and the enchantments he laid in desperation, for I know my love to be true: it has not faded like all else has at the touch of sunlight."
"As shall I, though I would be glad to know him without my mind clouded, and give him a talking-to about intending to keep us from our quest, though in the end we accomplished it," said Idril.
"I have not reconsidered, if you have not," said Maeglin, face pink with a blush, "and in any case you know my truest name now."
When their tears dried, they returned to Ondolindë, where the huntress reunited with her brother the king to great rejoicing, and the king welcomed his sister-son with love, though it had been four years since the princess and the hero had left and to them it had felt like only months.
And they all lived happily ever after.